Established client succeeds in ground-breaking business rates decision

Eversheds Sutherland, acting on behalf of Principled Offsite Logistics Ltd (Principled), has successfully won a multi-million pound High Court business rates case following a lengthy litigation against Trafford Borough Council. The ruling states the storage model employed by Principled to mitigate rating liability for its clients is sufficient to constitute beneficial occupation – a ground-breaking decision which will be welcomed by corporate occupiers nationwide.

Fieldfisher's Equity Capital Markets team has advised AIM-listed Access Intelligence plc on a £2.8 million secondary placing to fund the development of its data-driven communications management technology.

London-based Access Intelligence, a leading supplier of software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions for communications and reputation management to more than 1,600 clients, raised the funds largely from existing shareholders via a significantly over-subscribed placing of 70 million new ordinary shares at a price of 4p per placing share.

Global law firm Norton Rose Fulbright has advised Altus Group, a leading provider of commercial real estate services, software and data solutions to the global commercial real estate industry, on its acquisition of Taliance Group SAS, French provider of cloud-based alternative investment software, for EUR20m.

International legal practice Osborne Clarke has advised the shareholders of Dutch digital production company MediaMonks Multimedia Holding B.V., on its sale to S4 Capital Limited founded by Sir Martin Sorrell, as a result of a controlled auction process, managed by Clarity Capital Partners and JEGI.

Slaughter and May advised Arm Limited on the sale of a 51% stake in its Chinese subsidiary, Arm Technology (China) Co., Ltd. (“Arm China”), to entities representing certain financial investors and certain of Arm's ecosystem partners in order to form a joint venture for Arm's existing semiconductor technology IP business in China. The transaction values Arm China at US$1.52 billion.

Siemens and Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing arm of Alibaba Group, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on the deployment of MindSphere, Siemens’ cloud-based open Internet of Things (IoT) operating system, on Alibaba Cloud.  The two companies will leverage each other’s technology and industry resources to build a unique IoT solution to support Industrie 4.0, China’s manufacturing upgrade and transformation and other industrial Internet initiatives, and to jointly foster the industrial IoT in China.  The implementation of MindSphere on Alibaba Cloud will p

International law firm McDermott Will & Emery advised Fiducia & GAD IT AG on the sale of all shares in ELAXY GmbH to CREALOGIX Group.
 
As part of the transaction, ELAXY subsidiary ELAXY Business Solution & Services GmbH & Co. KG, in which CREALOGIX had acquired a 20% stake back in 2015, was fully taken over by CREALOGIX. The company will in future operate under the name CREALOGIX BaaS GmbH & Co. KG.

FRANKFURT—Covington advised Senvion Group on the global outsourcing of its IT infrastructure, network, and application services. The outsourcing includes the transformation of the global legacy data center environment into a new hybrid cloud environment.

Founded in Germany, Senvion is a global manufacturer of onshore and offshore wind turbines and has installed more than 7,500 wind turbines around the world.

DLA Piper has advised India/US-based HCL Technologies, a leading global technology company on its acquisition of the German-based IT and engineering services provider, H&D International Group, consisting of 15 group companies, including subsidiaries based in the US and the Czech Republic. The completion of the transaction is subject to clearance by the German Federal Cartel Office.